Amazon: How I quickly rose to VP (Ethan Evans)

Hi fellow members,

Before we dive in, I’ve got big news for all of you…

🙌 Announcing the ADPList annual conference: BeMore Festival 2024!

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ll be hosting our annual 24-hour virtual conference on 18 September. This year, we handpicked a speaker lineup of 100+ high-demand product and design leaders from over 20+ countries.

This year’s curation of over 100+ speakers and incredible talks on topics like charting your path to leadership, building influence, building and making with AI, growing and designing products that scale, and design/dev collaboration, there are tons of sessions you do not want to miss!

While limited tickets last, so hurry up and grab yours today!

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From 0 to VP: How I got promoted to VP at Amazon

Ethan Evans is a writer, career coach, course instructor, and retired VP at Amazon. During his 15 years at Amazon, he helped invent Prime Video, Amazon Video, the Amazon Appstore, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce. Ethan holds 70+ patents. Has reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and made 1,000+ hires.

In this episode, we discuss everything on:

• Formula on growing and promotion in your career

• Strategies on how to become a good manager

• Why are bad managers good for you?

• How do you hire for ownership?

• Lessons from working with Jeff Bezos

• How to build trust with your team and managers?

• The Magic Loop (Career Playbook)

• Mistakes new managers make

• Why do some people’s careers stagnate?

• Transitioning into management

Some key takeaways:

• Follow the (secret) Magic Loop to speed up your career growth: do your current job well, ask your boss how you can help, do what they ask, suggest ways to help that align with your goals, and repeat.

• Bouncing back from failure is simpler than you imagine. Acknowledge the error, gain knowledge from it, and put in continuous effort to rebuild trust. Despite an unsuccessful product launch at Amazon, Ethan earned back Jeff Bezos's confidence and was given a promotion.

• Going from IC to Manger is a new career—10x in influence. Transitioning from individual contributor to manager requires a new skill set, and it's essential to recognize that you're changing careers. Being the best engineer or designer doesn't guarantee an executive role; the ability to influence other executives is crucial.

Watch this interview today:

Where to find Ethan Evans:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp

• YouTube: Ethan Evan’s video

• Website: https://www.ethanevans.com

Where to find Felix Lee:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

• X: https://x.com/felixleezd

• ADPList’s Newsletter: https://adplist.substack.org

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

2:00 - Who is Ethan Evans?

5:33 - Lessons from 80s, 90s

8:48 - Who are Executives?

10:37 - Executive vs Management

14:34 - Mistakes managers make

18:14 - How to transition into management?

23:33 - Value of "bad" managers

31:31 - The Magic Loop

38:20 - Dark side of Magic Loop

44:15 - Career stagnation

48:30 - Failing Jeff Bezos

55:04 - How to rebuild/build trust?

57:10 - Hiring for ownership

1:08:40 - Interview with Elon Musk

1:14:36 - Handshake policy (no lawyers)

1:21:00 - No return for offices

1:26:25 - Resources

Resources:

1. Don Norman: 21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

2. Guy Kawasaki: Lessons from Steve Jobs & Mindset to Achieve Greater Things. Watch on YouTube.

3. Julie Zhuo: Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. Watch on YouTube.

4. Chris Do: Reveals Truth on Good Design, Money, Psychedelic, Storytelling and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

5. Jakob Nielsen (Special Keynote): 10 Foundational UX Insights. Watch on YouTube.

6. Kunal Shah: How to Make Career Luck, Secret to Happiness. Watch on YouTube.

Recommended Reads For You:

• Design Career Ladder Cheatsheet (NEW)

• How I got 50 job offers with zero experience

• This is the 1 skill designers will need

• What six years at FAANG taught me about designer growth

• A guide to becoming a senior product designer

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix or the BeMore Festival 2024: https://bemore.adplist.org/sponsors

Question: Who else should I interview next on ADPList Growth Series?

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Thank you for being a part of ADPList’s Newsletter! I hope you found it valuable. Forward it to a friend if you did, or share it on socials to get others thinking.

I'll keep creating great stuff if you watch, listen, or read. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Felix Lee